Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Kieran  Curley

Carrigeen Travel ltd T/ A Daly Travel

(amended on consent at hearing)

Representatives

Mr Ali Bracken BL, instructed by Charles C Daly & Co Solicitors.

 John Daly, Director.

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977

CA-00070616-001

07/04/2025

On 7 April 2025, the Complainant submitted his complaint of having been unfairly dismissed on 28 February 2025, from his position as a Coach driver.

The Respondent was notified of the complaint some 4 days later.

Both parties were invited to attend the scheduled hearing in the case set for 12 January 2026.

As neither party had forwarded the requested written submission, I took it upon myself to seek these submissions, complete with a table of loss and mitigation to assist in my preparation for hearing.

The Complainant, by then was legally represented and filed a written submission on 6 January 2026, which was forwarded to the Respondent.

The Respondent did not reciprocate.

Both Mr. Curley and Mr. Daly took the oath to accompany their evidence at hearing.

I offered the parties time to explore an informal solution, which did not bear fruit.

At the conclusion of the hearing, I sought three relevant documents from the Respondent.

1 The Statement made by the Respondent to named third party in the context of curtailment of Mr. Curleys driving for them, “the site ban “.

2 The Service Level Agreement in operation at the time of the incident.

3 Code of Conduct for Drivers

On 3 February 2026, I received two of the three documents, which were forwarded to the Complainant side, but did not generate a response.

The Respondent operates a transport business, part of which covers a school run. He denied that the dismissal was unfair.

Preliminary Issue, application for Postponement of hearing:

Mr Daly, the Respondent sought a postponement as he was without a Solicitor. He had decided to come to hearing having received the complainants’ comprehensive submissions.

Claim for Unfair Dismissal:

Mr Daly outlined that the complainant covered a school run on a part time basis. He was suspended at the behest of third party, named at hearing, who had received a complaint from a child passengers’ mother.

Mr Daly confirmed that he operated a service level agreement with this Company.

He had wanted the complainant to enter a tripartite meeting with him as employer and service provider and the third party, but the complainant chose to “go his own road, outside of myself “

Mr Daly said that he suspended the complainant and paid him for three weeks during this period. He stood him down in the believe this was a fair thing to do.

Evidence of Mr Daly under oath:

Mr Daly operates a transport business with 14 drivers engaged in coach hire, 90% School runs.

The Complainant was hired for private hire as Mr Daly had been operating routes himself.

He gave a background from January 2025 that he learned that there had been a disagreement on Mr Curleys’ bus. He told him that he had been checking disruptive children when parents got involved.

Bus Eireann notified him of a complaint by a parent on 29 January 2025.

The Complainant told him the parent was wrong and he did not accept this.

He told the complainant he would have to furnish a statement, and a meeting would follow “so that it could be reversed “

The Complainant refused to attend the meeting, preferring to work with his own Solicitor so the meeting never went ahead.

Mr Daly submitted that he had sought the complainant to diversify into “football match cover “but the complainant was non-committal and would not engage.

In or around February 26, 2025, he asked the complainant to cover an alternative route to schools and he refused.

The Complainant told him that there would be.

 “No more driving until there was a meeting on schools “

Mr Daly knew that the cause for concern centred on disruption on the bus but did not have exact information.

He felt that he had no choice but to dismiss the complainant and advertised for his replacement the subsequent week.

During cross examination, Mr Daly confirmed that he was the contact person for the third party in relation to the Service contract.

He accepted that the complainant had not been furnished with terms and conditions or a wage slip.

There was no specific training in child welfare.

Mr Daly told the hearing that he did not know what the complaint was about as

 “It had not been articulated in any detail “

outside of an issue between children and a parent. He termed it.

 “Privileged information “.

He had not received sight of the complaint as the third party had not put it in writing.

Mr Daly told the hearing that he had furnished a statement to the third party and agreed to submit this document but did not do so.

Counsel put to Mr Daly that summary dismissal is retained for most serious conduct and had he considered measures short of dismissal, to which he answered no.

He reaffirmed that schools constituted the lions share of the work allocated with a

 “Small amount of private work “

In conclusion, Mr Daly lamented that the case had “ended up here “

Were it not for the parental complaint, he reckoned the complainant would still be with him in continuance of his 10 years’ service.

The Respondent submitted three post hearing documents.

1 some emails February to April 2025, Respondent to Third party. I did not receive the statement Mr Daly said he sent to the Third party in his evidence. His reason for this omission was that he been requested to provide a statement to the third party on a complaint he had not seen, a mirror argument to that of the complainants.

2 Service Level Agreement, postdating the dismissal.

3 Conduct for Drivers on behalf of the third party, postdating the dismissal

The Complainant is a long-established Commercial driver. He commenced work with the Respondent as a Coach driver on 25 hrs per week in response for €500.00 nett pay on 31 August 2015. He was laid off for 8 weeks during the summer period as he was aligned to School bus driving.

In his introductory complaint form, the Complainant outlined the tenure of his employment as:

31 August 2015 to his dismissal on 28 February 2025.

He has been unable to find work post dismissal and his losses were estimated to date of hearing as:

28 February to 27 June 2025   €8,500 (nett), Social welfare payments are not included in loss.

1 September 2025 to 12 January 2026 = €8,000 (nett)

The Complainant sought the remedy of compensation in the event of his claim succeeding for unfair dismissal.

Summary of Written Submission:

Counsel for the Complainant, Mr Bracken, submitted that the complainant had been unfairly dismissed in or around 26 February 2025 as there were not any substantial grounds justifying the dismissal. He also contended that.

 “Procedures, if any leading to the dismissal were fundamentally flawed and unfair “.

He outlined the nature of the Complainants work as a school Bus driver over 10 years. The employment interacted with the named third party with whom the Respondent had entered a service level agreement.

The employment was bereft of specific training, any foundation documents of employment, training in the care and welfare of children.

Any expansion on the triangular employment relationship of tri partite:

Complainant, Respondent, Service Provider.

The Complainant had an unblemished record.

The circumstances that led to the dismissal centred on a complaint attributed to Ms A, mother of a child bus passenger who had been travelling on the complainant’s bus run for over two years.

The Complainant was given to understand that Child B had an expectation he was to be seated at the front of the bus during his passage to and from school. He was unaware of this until Ms A entered into an “abusive and confrontational interaction “with him on 23 January 2025.

Ms A informed the complainant of her son’s condition of autism. The Complainant explained the criteria he applied to seating arrangements on the bus, based on safety.

On 29 January 2025, the complainant was notified of his suspension by phone. He was forwarded a message from Bus Eireann which curtailed his permission to drive for the Company.

“On foot of a complaint to this office the third party is invoking clause 4.8 of the school transport contract ….

Effective immediately, your nomination to deploy driver Kieran Curley, to operate any school transport service on our behalf is suspended until further notice “

The Respondent delayed in paying the suspension period.

On 26 February 2025, the Respondent sent a text to the complainant notifying him of his dismissal:

“As you are not in a position to operate private hire for us, we have no choice but to advertise your position and you will finish with us this Friday February 2025 …... “

The Complainant was unfairly dismissed as there were no substantial grounds for his dismissal and the procedural framework was flawed and unfair.

The Complainant was not requested to engage in any process surrounding a complaint, not given a rationale for his suspension and eventual dismissal.

He was treated badly.

He became ill after his dismissal which affected his ability to relaunch into the workplace and has since become entitled to statutory pension.

The Complainants reality is that he will be unable to obtain new work.

Preliminary Issue, application for Postponement of hearing:

Mr Bracken BL opposed the application as he said it was without reason. The grounding submissions had been furnished and there no issues of law outstanding in this long-standing case.

It was his stated preference that his client be heard.

Evidence of the Complainant under oath:

The Complainant outlined his weekly commitment to the position of bus driver as 5 days a week covering primary and secondary schools. He had not been provided with foundation documents of employment. He was unfamiliar with the terms of the Service level Agreement between the third party and his employer.

In addressing the circumstances which led to this case, he recalled that on Thursday 23 January 2025, to Mr Daly what had occurred on his bus. He was unaware of a parental complaint.

Child A had been a long-term passenger on the bus. On this day, his mother had accessed the steps of the bus and informed him that Child A was the subject of Agreement with his school that he should be placed on the front seat of the bus.

Mr Curley’s practice in the face of challenging behaviour was to ask the child or children to sit further back for them and the drivers’ sakes.

He was suspended the following Wednesday, January 29, 2025, by phone at 7.30pm. He was shocked.

During this time, he learned that child A was autistic, which was the first he heard of it.

Mr Curley told the hearing that he had not received the complaint which led to his suspension and was therefore denied an opportunity to address the concerns raised. He had been informed that it was an ongoing process.

However, he had not been invited to meetings and was disappointed when he was dismissed by what’s app on February 26 as there “was no real process “

He had experienced a deterioration in his health and did not secure alternative employment.

He accessed the OAP from 17 September 2025.

He has never received a date for a meeting on the topic of the complaint which led to his suspension and eventual dismissal.

He acknowledged that he had been offered an alternative run locally as a “Wednesday “job.

Mr Curley had not received a grievance and disciplinary procedure and had not been offered an appeal of the decision to dismiss him. He contended that he had been unfairly treated.

In cross examination Mr Daly put to the whether he had treated him fairly “all the years “? He acknowledged that Mr Daly acted on bus Eireann direction.

In conclusion, Mr Bracken described the circumstances of the dismissal as egregious and lacking in a procedural framework. A month timeline accompanied the suspension to dismissal without meaningful engagement.

The fundamentals of the basic principles of fair procedures were vacated when nobody put a case to the complainant.

Therefore, he was hampered in his capacity to respond as he simply did not know to whom he should direct this response.

Mr Daly exercised the nuclear option of dismissal and denied fairness.

If this complaint was deemed  “fully true “it would not have triggered a fair dismissal. The complaint was simply untested, and nobody led with a procedural framework.

The suspension was unfair, precipitous, and harmed the complainant.

The Complainant was unfairly dismissed and now warranted compensation.

This is a claim for unfair dismissal by the complainant and refuted by the Respondent.

In reaching my decision in the case, I have read everything the parties assembled and submitted in written form. I also listened carefully to the evidence adduced; submissions raised and have considered the evidence.

To help in exploring the defence put forward by the respondent, on whom the burden of proof in this case lay, I requested three supplementary documents.

1 The Statement made in the context of the parental complaint by the respondent to the third party.

2 The Service Level Agreement (Respondent and Third Party)

3 Code of Conduct.

I received the latter two, albeit the SLA and code of conduct postdated the dismissal. While shared with the Complainant for comment, it did not prompt a response.

Preliminary Issue, application for Postponement of hearing:

I listened to both parties’ application and offered feedback on the application.

The Respondent had initially sent an email of application to postpone on 8 January 2026 on grounds of Solicitor availability and was directed to make the application in person at hearing.

The Respondent’s named Solicitor was neither on record in the case, nor had he made an application to postpone. The dismissal was almost a year in being; the claim came before the WRC in early April 2025.

I noted that the Respondent had not demonstrated any engagement with the WRC procedures from date of notification of the claim in April 2025 to the date of hearing.

I could not establish that exceptional circumstances prevailed so as to warrant a last minute postponement in this long running case.

I refused to postpone the hearing and told both parties that I would proceed to take evidence in the hearing.

The parties accepted my findings and the case proceeded.

Substantive Case Findings:

My role in this case is to ascertain whether there were substantial grounds underpinning the dismissal and whether it was reasonably open to the respondent to make the decision to dismiss made?

AIB V Purcell [2012]23 ELR 189.

 This judgement drew on Denning J in British Leyland UK ltd V Swift [1981] IRLR 91

“It must be remembered that in all these cases there is a band of reasonableness, within which one employer might reasonably take one view, another quite reasonably takes a different view “

My jurisdiction is drawn from Section 1 and 6 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977.

“dismissal”, in relation to an employee, means—

(a) the termination by his employer of the employee’s contract of employment with the employer, whether prior notice of the termination was or was not given to the employee,

Section 2 of the Act provides for an exclusion:

b) an employee who is dismissed and who, on or before the date of his dismissal, had reached the normal retiring age for employees of the same employer in similar employment 

On the date of his dismissal, the complainant had reached 65 years of age. I have no way of gauging what a normal retiring age of this employment was, when I was not provided with foundation employment documentation.

There were no submissions on seeking an exemption from the protection of the Act.

However, I wish to record that I cannot exempt the complainant from the protection of the Act in the absence of any collateral.

Section 6 Unfair dismissal.

6.— (1) Subject to the provisions of this section, the dismissal of an employee shall be deemed, for the purposes of this Act, to be an unfair dismissal unless, having regard to all the circumstances, there were substantial grounds justifying the dismissal.

Section 6(7) of the Act allows me to explore the reasonableness of the approach conducted by the Respondent.

In Bank of Ireland V Reilly [2015] IEHC 241, Noonan J. gave some guidance on assessing the reasonableness of an employer’s conduct in relation to a dismissal. He contended.

“.. that such an assessment must have regard to the surrounding circumstances, including the impact of the conduct on the employer as against the impact of the dismissal on the employee to determine the proportionality of the employer’s response.”

The triangular employment relationship such as outlined in this case is always a difficult and challenging one to assess. There are three entities at play. Two in the core employment relationship and one managing a service level agreement.

 It has become much harder in the instant case, without umbrella documentation from the respondent, employee or third party.

Neither did I have the benefit of CC TV footage, antecedent complaint, or dossier   of any occurrence from the bus.

This employment would have benefitted greatly from foundation documentation drawn from real life legislative templates such as statement of terms of employment, grievance procedure, and pay slips.

I was expected to find my way through the dark. This troubled me when I considered the clarity and specifics attributed to bus routes and rules as against a complete vacuum in people centred practices. I endeavoured to listen very carefully as both parties presented their respective facts.

What I can be sure of, and both parties agreed, that there was nothing unusual in the employment relationship from August 2015 to the third week of January 2025, a lifetime in many peoples working lives. Mr Curley took summer periods off, and both parties seemed to benefit from his work. He came to the case with a clean record.

This changed on 23 January 2025 when the complainant stated that he received a negative interaction with Child As mother in the course of his work. It appears that Ms A, sought to resolve the situation with the respondent through submitted suggested punitive and corrective actions, whilst simultaneously complaining to the third party.

The matter was not resolved.

The Complainant was then suspended on January 29, 2025. This was where I found the first ambiguity.

The What’s app conveying the suspension was made in deference to the third-party SLA which provided “absolute discretion to object at any time to any person nominated or engaged by a Contractor as a driver.”

The nomination earned by the respondent to deploy the driver “is suspended until further notice “

This constitutes a site ban.

What followed was a period of wilderness for the complainant, initially unpaid and not alerted to any cogently scripted reasons from this curtailment.

I have no way of knowing just why the third party did not move to investigate this issue in the interest of fair procedures.

An investigation was an identifiable option in the SLA but was not exercised by them.

On balance, the respondent was required to diversify from by stander to employer on this matter. In my opinion, he was required to lead.

I can see that he sought a copy of   the complaint from the third party on 21 February 2025.

“So, we and our driver can deal with it “

He seemed to adopt a position of tacit acceptance when the third party refused “to supply a copy of the complaint “

While requested to provide a full statement prepared by him as employer and Mr Curley as employee, neither submitted a statement on an unseen complaint.

I accept the Respondent evidence that he sought to coax the complainant to participate in some kind of response to the third party but was unsuccessful.

I was taken aback when the third party rested on a position that they were not obliged to release the complaint on 12 March 2025.

By March 12, 2005, the complainant had been dismissed.

Mindful of Noreen O Sullivan v Mercy Hospital [2005] IEHC 170, when Clarke J granted an injunction in the case of a planned investigation into a claim of bullying, when the plaintiff had not been informed of adverse findings being considered against her and flawed preliminary reports were limited in follow up inquiries.

Bizarrely, the third party later communicated that they had investigated the complaint without the respondent and Mr Curley and would not be restoring the complainant to his nominated driver status. This was April 2025, two months post termination of employment.

The topic of separation of powers within a tri partite triangular relationship has consumed many practitioners prior to my inquiry.

In Morrigan V Home Counties UD 904/1984, in ordering re-instatement of a contract cleaner as a remedy for unfair dismissal, the EAT commented that:

“The job of an employee cannot be at risk on the mere whim of a third party to the employment relationship “

The facts of this case centred on a hospital cleaner whose family were linked by the Media to a criminal activity. The Hospital Manager asserted that the complainant’s association with the family in the spotlight could have a negative impact on the cleaning contract and it would “look bad “.

For my party, I have not seen the SLA operational at the time of dismissal. Neither have I seen the Code of Conduct for drivers at the time of dismissal. Neither party called witnesses from the third party.

I found a disparity between the complainants’ own evidence and his prehearing narrative.

I accept that the respondent sought to engage him in furnishing a statement. I understand the complainants concerns on responding in the absence of a statement.

I must conclude that the triangular tripartite employment relationship did little if anything to afford fair procedures to the complainant. It was a case of too many proverbial cooks stirring an undefined pot of complaint.

I understand the complainants’ assertions that he had a higher expectation that the respondent would do something within the employment tenure to provide safety for him to express his concerns and allow him a mechanism to address the much referred to complaint.

I understand the respondents concerns in seeking to navigate the complex arena of a service user complaint shared with him orally and the third party in writing. However, I cannot excuse his inertia.

He did not action any policy of suspension when he placed the complainant on suspension on 29 January 2025. He did not specify the suspension would be a precursor for investigation.

 He gave no reasons for allowing the third party to permeate the employment and control what happened next.

The complainant was not provided with an investigation of any kind. He was dismissed in response to his refusing to accept alternative work. In this, I have found that he acted to his own detriment as he did not have a document which corralled his employment to school buses only and the respondent did try to offer him viable employment.

In this, I find that the complainant contributed to his own dismissal.

The Respondent was obliged to consider options short of dismissal. He did not do so. The Complainant suspension was paid by the third party.

Once dismissed, he was not provided with an opportunity to   appeal. By then the complainant was in receipt of legal advice and I would have expected sight of some challenge to the dismissal. There was none.

I have found that every rule of fair procedure, natural justice and trust and confidence was fractured by the respondent. He failed in his duty of care towards the complainant to maintain him in a safe place notwithstanding the collateral attack from a third party, not his direct his employer proper.

It is not my domain to state that the actions of the complainant in his public interaction with child A or his mother were wrong. I must accept that an incident occurred from which nobody recovered. However, only the complainant lost his job. It seemed to me that he did not have sufficient guidance on how to manage being door stopped by a parent. I could not find a customer complaint procedure.

I cannot find substantial grounds justifying dismissal. I cannot find a reasonableness in how this dismissal occurred. The entire process was void of fair procedures and natural justice.

Instead, I found an unnecessary deference shown by the respondent to a third-party partner in business who was not the complainants employer.

The Respondent did not have a contingency plan for safeguarding a direct employee against a

 “Site ban “

Mc Currach ltd and Ian Mulcahy,ADJ 6755 and Labour Court on appeal UDD1869, 2018.

The Labour Court was critical of the lag in procedural framework and speed of decision made to dismiss when they considered the powerful matrix of proportionality.

 Samuel J Frizelle v New Ross Credit Union [1997] IEHC 137 

the High Court set out the following legal principles to be observed:

• “Where a question of unfair dismissal is in issue, there are certain premises which must be established to support the decision to terminate employment for misconduct.

1. The complaint must be a bona fide complaint unrelated to any other agenda of the Complainant.

2. Where the Complainant is a person or body of intermediate authority, it should state the complaint, factually, clearly, and fairly without any innuendo or hidden inference or conclusion.

3. The employee should be interviewed and his version noted and furnished to the deciding authority contemporaneously with the complaint and again without comment.

4. The decision of the deciding authority should be based on the balance of probabilities flowing from the factual evidence and in the light of the explanation offered.

5. The actual decision, as to whether a dismissal should follow, should be a decision proportionate to the gravity of the complaint, and of the gravity and effect of dismissal on the employee.

Put very simply, principles of natural justice must be unequivocally applied.

I have found that the principles of Frizelle were not applied in the instant case.

The dismissal was both substantially and procedurally unfair.

This job was in essence the complainants last job and the manner in which he was terminated has left a lasting and enduring impact on him.

I saw no malice in what the respondent did, however, I found an insufficient guidance on what he could do, as an employer when faced with the pressure of a third party, who refused to give him the complaint and an employee who was reasonably demanding sight of this all set against the backdrop of a “site ban.”

The threat to business has not been proved to be real but remained remote.

The Respondent ought to have taken advice and strategised accordingly.

I have endeavoured to capture the considerations of earlier employment bodies on the central importance of investigation.

Pacelli v Irish Distillers Ltd (UD571/2001)

It is a prerequisite to any dismissal to conduct an investigation, and such an investigation should have regard to all the facts, issues and circumstances surrounding a case warranting serious chastisement or reprimand, such as dismissal.”

In Derek   Dunne v Moyra Harrington (UD166/1979), EAT.

 This case gives a useful insight for an employer into the core rules of natural justice and fair procedures required prior to dismissal.

“(a) personally in a fair and reasonable manner i.e. as fully as is reasonably possible, confronting the ‘suspected’ employee with ‘evidence,’ checking on and giving fair value to the employee’s explanation or comments and allowing the employee to be represented at all such meetings/confrontations if the employee requests it or a union/management agreement requires it and to produce ‘counter evidence.’

 or (b) he may rely on the reports of others”.

 However, if the employer does the latter “… without confronting the accused employee with the contents of the same, without hearing, investigating and giving value to his replies, giving him reasonable opportunity to produce rebutting ‘evidence’, and to be represented if the employee feels this to be desirable, then such employer breaches a fundamental rule of natural justice viz that the other party (i.e. the employee in these circumstances) should be heard.

 In short, an employer acting on the reports of third parties and not acquainting the employee with same does so at his peril if it results in the dismissal of that employee.”

I find that the Respondent acted at his peril in the circumstances of this case and the complainant contributed to his own dismissal.

The Complainant was unfairly dismissed.

In considering a remedy under section 7, I find compensation the sole viable remedy.

Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 – 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the unfair dismissal claim consisting of a grant of redress in accordance with Section 7 of the 1977 Act.

I have found the complainant was unfairly dismissed.

I respectfully suggest to the respondent that he incorporate a contingency for an externally imposed site ban which is underpinned with fair procedures and natural justice.

I have found compensation is the only viable remedy open to me.

I have not been met with sufficient proof of mitigation by the complainant.

I order the Respondent to pay the complainant compensation of €18,000 nett value of 36 weeks employment.

Claim for unfair dismissal within a site ban